Free Cold Pastoral by Margaret Duley

a room without a stove. Outside she had lost the waterfall and the strong suck of the sea. Swishes and slushes entered from wheels she did not know. Several times there was a quiet voice and smells she could not recognise. The voice belonged to hands imparting a glimmer of sense. Once, in lifting her, they seemed to hold her whole body. Rescuing her from her clouded world, she returned when they let her go. She felt as light as a puff-ball until she changed to feet and hands.
    The room was different then! Dark and warm, with one white moon on the floor. Outside there was a dead calm, but the restlessness of the sea had entered her body, making her roll in waves of pain. By her head she could hear an occasional crack of starch, like Uncle Rich’s dicky, in Mass on Sunday mornings. Then she kept meeting the rim of a spoon.
    Delirium was intermittent. She was lifted, floated, grounded, while seaweed hair streamed back from her face. Momentarily cool, it was washed by the sea. A lucid interval told her she was wrong. Somebody held her in containing hands while another wiped her face with a cloth. She could hear a quiet voice close to her ears.
    â€œDon’t bother her with the powder any more, Sister. I’m afraid it must be the needle. She’s wearing herself out. The circulation is returning and there’s inflammation. Try and keep the blood back by elevating the feet. Has she been delirious all evening?”
    â€œNearly all the time, sir. She thinks she’s a wave, leaping up the beach.”
    The remnant of Mary Immaculate’s mind resented the slur on her identity.
    â€œI’m not a wave,” she said weakly. “I’m in Purgatory, with hands and feet.”
    â€œNo, you’re not,” said the voice close to her ears, while hands under her shoulders settled her. Something safe had come between her and that floating fog. Could she dare think she had skipped Purgatory?
    â€œI’m in Heaven,” she sighed. “In the hands of St. Joseph.”
    â€œYou’re neither,” said the voice, as if the idea was absurd. “You’re in hospital because your feet and hands are frost bitten. It’s very simple and natural.”
    It seemed so, then. She let her head fall against somebody’s arm, but tired and dispirited as she was she had to look. In a momentary glimpse she retained a memory of a high white forehead, brown eyes and a nose as carved as the edge of a shell. She would have liked to look longer, but a weight of exhaustion lay on her lids.
    Once she could have been so interested. For the time being she was cured of zest. She was lying in bed because of her own leap after romance. Nothing of that silver day remained, nor could she recapture any of its beauty. There was no aftermath of diamond dust, crystal trees, or wings skimming over the snow She was conscious of consequences and the effect of her own misdeeds. Her body had trespassed on her mind, and imagination was subdued to the throb of hands and feet. The Little People had not come with her to hospital, nor did she think she could find them there. What place could they have in this clean new world where doors had no rings and windows could be opened without the protection of the Sacred Heart?
    When her shoulders were released she went whirling away in the fog.
    â€œThis won’t do,” said the voice. Waves washed over sound and leaped over a pin she felt in her arm.
    Black flakes were filling the room, down to the moon on the floor. They cooled her body, ran over her hands making a recession of pain.
    Down she went!
    She was running on a winter’s day when the blue was weak in the sky. The valley was deserted and the houses looked empty outside. Her feet were racing by the river, straining to reach the waterfall. The current ran one way and she ran the other, and she didn’t seem to get on. Behind, came the sound of hoofs, and each clippety-clop fell nearer to her ears. Looking